Chayei Sarah
Hello chaverim!
Content notes for this week's newsletter are antisemitism, homophobia/transphobia, anti-Palestinian BS
but first, to offset that, a very cute t4t jewish opportunity:
https://twitter.com/comradecumslut/status/1453659452431904770
Jewish Calendar
This week's torah portion is Chayei Sarah. Sarah dies at age 127. Abraham gets in an argument trying to buy a cave to bury her in when the guy with the cave is like "no, seriously, i will give this to you as a gift. for free. no take-backsies." Feels like when competitively generous relatives go to a restaurant. Speaking of generous relatives, Abraham sends his servant to find Yitzchak a wife from the same place Abraham came from, and he is like "okay i will pick the lady who offers to water my camels" and it was Rivka.
I remember hearing (or reading) about the irony that Chayei Sarah begins with Sarah's death, but it also sticks out to me that a parsha named for a woman is mostly about her daughter-in-law, who she never got to meet. The parsha begins with Sarah's death and ends with Abraham's, but the meat of it is Rivka's entry into the family.
PS. love at first sight made rivka fall off a camel and i think that's hilarious, as someone else with a "oh no, they're cute, *walks into a wall* situation.
https://twitter.com/onthemainline/status/1451539446327877634?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Israel problems and antisemitism problems
The new AJC antisemitism survey is bad.
I'm not a marxist, but I appreciated Jonah ben Abraham's very jewish review of Enzo Traverso's The Jewish Question: History of a Marxist Debate regardless.
It is deeply frustrating when antisemitism experts only want to talk about zionism, part 7823874362.
Dr. Tim Wingard had an excellent thread about how antisemitism peeks its way into medieval bestiaries and other illuminated manuscripts (hyenas are shifty with their genderchanging like jews are shifty, owls are blind to jesus' wisdom unlike other birds, and manticores with phrygian caps are--i don't even know, but apparently also antisemitic caricatures).
Meanwhile, the 6 palestinian human rights groups being targeted by the israeli government are still caught in some bizarre loop of allegations that may or may not exist officially. Also, more proof has come to light that facebook is censoring Palestinian accounts and their content.
Chris Cantwell (the crying nazi)'s trial is ongoing and he sure is a nazi. Molly Conger continues to do great work documenting the trial.
Miscellaneous
https://twitter.com/shayhakohen/status/1453431254091771909
let's learn about Jewish astrology traditions!
Chaya Milstein, the mechanic shop femme, is the coolest.
There's a new adorable shabbat cheat sheet zine from Sophia Zohar, aka MaimonidesNutz.
In general i have mixed feelings about tourism-centered jewish revitalization projects, but the Izmir one is at least led by and centers the jewish community there--and it would be very cool to visit the final museum if i ever end up there.
daph ben david v'yosef has a soundcloud where they recorded liturgical bits and bobs from mizrachi and sephardi liturgical traditions. While there are recordings elsewhere online of liturgy from multiple traditions, almost all (if not all) of them are full-blown traditional chazzanut by cis men, which I often find unapproachable. This is much more my speed.
https://twitter.com/JewishLanguages/status/1452676284698398720?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Happy halloween!
The Golem has been rescored, divided into 8 episodes, and put on youtube for your streaming pleasure.
Jewish Currents has a very cute roundup of jewish monsters and related entities with art by jewish tattoo artist Joey Ramona.
You can also watch a recording of Olivia Devorah Tucker discussing the Jewish Monster Manual!
Ezra Rose's shop will be reopening 11/1, which includes much spoopy content like their shamir worm print!
Cream cheese in rugelach is classic. How did it get there?
https://twitter.com/aesthetikeit/status/1453435726167642117?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Events!
10/31 Queer Yiddishist Shmueskrayz (in both english and yiddish)
10/31 Women of Sefarad Series presents: Heroines
11/4 Ahead of Her Time: celebrating 25 years of the Jewish Women's Archive
11/4 Sigd, an Ethiopian Jewish holiday 50 days after Yom Kippur
11/5 TransHallel Rosh Chodesh Kislev (register on zoom)
11/11 Mah-jongg in American Jewish Life, a Yiddish Book Center multimedia talk
11/11 Binyan basics: dressing up our roots, a SVARA lesson by Amir Weg
11/14 Documenting Endangered Jewish Languages: Practical, Ethical, and Cultural Issues (panel with speakers of Judeo-Shirazi, Judeo-Arabic, Jewish-Neo-Aramaic, and Judeo-Georgian)
11/15 The Voice of the Mothers: A Look into Sephardi Feminist Approaches to Tradition with Dr. Angy Cohen ($10)
11/16 Why am I Bukharian if I am not from Bukhara? ($10)
11/28 Chanukah begins
12/2 The Rich History of Jewish Papercuts, with Deborah Ugoretz. The art, not the injury.
12/12 Ladino Day at UW
Jewish Pet of the Week
The Jewish Pet of the Week is Doodlecat, who is always a helpful studying assistant!
https://twitter.com/ai_valentin/status/1453442381035020295
<3
Meli